The Blackberry Storm has the Apple iPhone beat when it comes to reception, copy and paste, email, document editing, and camera. While lacking tabbed browsing and Wi-Fi, this solid choice is shaping up to be an "iPhone killer" and indeed I am picking it over the iPhone. (Source: Blackberry)

My new smart phone is just two days away!

Staring at my mess of a broken LG Chocolate phone I decided to make a drastic change. You see, I have been on a steady climb up the tech ladder when it comes to cell phones. I started with a crude Samsung clamshell that came with my first Verizon contract. About a year and a half I switched to the LG Chocolate, intending to use it as a music player.

In the end I hardly used the Chocolate for music, as I soon bought a 160 GB iPod that could hold all my collection. And my first Chocolate had a slew of problems, which I say I personal chalk up to poor engineering on LG's part; first the buttons became unresponsive, then the microphone pickup began to die -- people couldn't hear my calls. After a stiff talk with some Verizon folks I got my phone warrantied. After several more months, my phone began to develop a crack on the screen. Whether this was somehow my doing or something that happened on the line or in shipping is immaterial -- the end result was the same -- the screen eventually died entirely.

So why am I excited about the Storm, and why am I picking it over the iPhone? First and foremost call: quality. I know people in my area, both friends and random acquaintances, who have had problems with the iPhone reception. On a train in Chicago, I had a random exchange with one iPhone user who bemoaned the horrible call quality her iPhone had given her over the course of the last year. Further, I do a lot of travelling and if I go overseas, say to Europe, I want to have a way of getting service -- something not possible with the iPhone. Working on any GSM HSPA 3G network in the world, the Storm seems like it will be the perfect traveling companion.

Then there's email and copy & paste (C&P) which go nicely hand in hand. The iPhone lacks the latter, and does the former more clumsily than Blackberry. And while the iPhone 2.0 has come a long way in terms of email from its predecessor, all signs point to the Storm offering the superior experience.

Another reason I think the Storm could unseat the iPhone is its unique button-style screen. With every keystroke, the screen clicks like a key. From early reviews I've ascertained that this will provide a superior typing experience among the screen typing-only smartphone crowd.

Another advantage is the Storm comes with free software to read and edit MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Office 2007 documents. The iPhone only comes with software to read these document types.

Finally, there's the better camera. The iPhone sports a weak 2.0 MP flashless picture-only camera, but the Storm features a hearty 3.2 MP camera with zoom, auto focus, video, and a nice flash. Again, just a small perk, but it’s nice.

Both the iPhone and the Blackberry Storm both have (or in the Storm's case will have) application stores, so this is a virtual tie (though Apple will win the tie-breaker for having more Apps).

What am I concerned about? The biggest gripe I have is with RIM's browser. Stuck in the browsing stone age, it does not feature tabs. While it may get Adobe Flash before Apple, I'd pick tabs over it any day. I'm hoping RIM remedies this -- and soon -- or else Opera develops a new version of its Mini browser (Blackberry compatible) which features tabbing. I'm aware that there's a low-res browser named Minuet that does tabbing, but I think not having a modern tabbing browser is a serious omission for the storm.

Otherwise, the addition of Wi-Fi support would be nice. A little more memory (1 GB currently) might be nice as well. In all honesty I could care less about Apple's "slick touch interface" or such tripe -- some might call Blackberry's slightly-less-touch-perfect interface a negative, but I dissent.

In the end I am looking forward to the Blackberry Storm, which is now only three days away. It looks to be shaping up to be the first true iPhone killer, from a pioneer in the cell phone industry. I've seen other smart phones like the Voyager and G1 do their thing, and I haven't jumped, though I was tempted. However, the Blackberry Storm seems to tempting to resist.

I hope to be able to do an exclusive review about my impressions on the phone in coming weeks and offer some insight to potential buyers. And hopefully I'll be able to type it on the phone as an added perk (though that lack of tabbed browsing has me nervous).

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Canada is still getting price gouged on cell phone plans. It is horrible how bad our plans are here. If you want an iPhone you are looking at a $75 plan that covers everything but minutes. Add some reasonable talk plans that are required to even use the iPhone as a phone and you are looking at a $120 bill with the shady $6.95 system access fee, overcharged 911 fee, and tax. For a similar price you can get nearly unlimited calling in the US. Plus, there is no long distance within the US, I can't even call my house from my work without being charged long distance. Even worse, back in high school, I couldn't call home from a pay phone to get picked up because it was long distance! It was a 15 minute ride!!!

Anyway, I can't comment on the state of the smart phone market before the iPhone, clearly it was bad. But it certainly isn't good now either. The phone companies in Canada, particularly Bell, have been raping the customer since before anyone can remember. Telecom industries in general are horrible in Canada and I dream of a day where we could consider ourselves on par with even the US, which also has a nearly-as-bad telecom industry.

I agree WiFi isn't necessary for business customers, and perhaps it is unwanted by businesses in general. However, I think the Storm was an attempt to re-capture the consumer smart phone market while maintaining expanding choices for the corporate world. On the consumer level, I think WiFi is greatly appreciated.